Lesson Plans and Materials

AskERIC The AskERIC Lesson Plan Collection contains more than 1100 unique lesson plans which have been written and submitted to AskERIC by teachers from all over the United States. C-SPAN This site, developed for classroom use, provides information on current events, especially pertinent to the social studies classroom. EconEdLink This Economics education Web site provides online lesson plans, datalinks, Web resources, current events and links to standards. edHelper.com This site features thousands of lesson plans, WebQuests, work sheets,activities, and materials for K-12 teachers. EDSITEment This site is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities and contains hundreds of lesson plans for foreign language, arts and culture, history and social studies areas. Edutopia Online This site, sponsored by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, contains a myriad of resources including lesson plans, interviews with teachers, examples of student work, and online videos. Innovative instructional practices are the featured element here. Eisenhower National Clearinghouse for Mathematics and Science Education ENC provides a searchable database of science and math materials. Chartered by the US Department of Education, ENC publishes a variety of free white papers regarding science and math issues. Of special interest is their Digital Dozen, which features a baker's dozen of exemplary math and science sites every month. Eyewitness This history Web resource provides short histories of western world events, such as the destruction of Pompeii and the fall of Berlin in 1945. Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE) Produced by the U.S. Department of Education, this Web portal offers links to hundreds of education resources supported by agencies across the U.S.Federal government. The site is divided by subject area and also features a search engine. iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) iEARN is an international non-profit organization that encourages and facilitates the use of the Internet in collaborative educational projects. The site features information about projects, membership, and professional development. Library of Congress Learning Page This Library of Congress site is developed especially for teachers. It contains an exceptionally rich collection of lesson plans, activities, collection links, and professional development information. Microbe World This site, sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology, contains information about the field of microbiology. There are also a variety of hands-on activities and resources for students, teachers, and scientists. Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory (McREL) McREL maintains a list of hundreds of lesson plan links for a variety of different subject areas. McREL's mission is to make a difference in the quality of education and learning for all through excellence in applied research, product development, and service NASA Quest The NASA Quest Web site is packed full of free resources for the science classroom. These resources include profiles of NASA experts, live interactions, audio and video clips, lesson plans, Internet projects, a photo database and list of over 3000 faqs. National Geographic Teachers Site This site provides a host of resources for teaching social studies and other subject areas in the classroom. With photos, map makers, lesson plans and online activities, teachers can find a variety of teaching ideas and materials. PBS TeacherSource This site contains over 3,500 lesson plans for core content areas. Many are linked to Web iste and contain online activities. Science NetLinks This science Web site offers a multitude of standards-based lesson plans and resources. Each week, it features a different topical focus that could easily be used in a single class period or adapted for prolonged investigation. The site is very easy-to-use thanks to an elegant and clean interface design. Smithsonian Center for Education The Smithsonian is the single largest museum in the world and houses many treasures from the U.S. and abroad. This site contains lesson plans, online resources, and links to images, publications, and music for every subject area. Teachers Network This site features major initiatives of the veteran non-profit organization designed for teachers, by teachers. Teachers Network offers professional development opportunities and educational resources in the areas of curriculum, leadership, policy, and new media. The site also features lesson plans, project ideas, and online videos demonstrating innovative teaching techniques. The Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM) GEM provides educators with a powerful search tool that gives access to educational materials on federal, state, university, nonprofit, and commercial Internet sites. It is operated by the U.S. Department of Education. The Math Forum @ Drexel This math Web site offers a wide variety of resources for the teaching of K-12 mathematics. From arithmetic to calculus, this site provides lesson plans and materials, weekly math challenges, online discussions, and professional development materials. The WebQuest Page This site focuses on providing resources to educators interested in designing and using WebQuests in the classroom. The WebQuest learning model was designed by Bernie Dodge and Tom March in the early days of the Web and has taken off ever since. USGS Learning Web This United States Geological Survey (USGS) site delivers a variety of well-designed lessons for the sciences as well as geography.       Published by Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, a division of the Educational and Professional Publishing Group of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020. Copyright © 2000-2005 Glencoe/McGraw-Hill. All rights reserved.        This was copied from the website: Link

Facts Teachers Must know about Auditory Learners

Auditory learners are very good listeners. They tend to absorb information in a more efficient manner through sounds, music, discussions, teachings, etc. These individuals will be more likely to record lectures so that they can replay them at a later time for study purposes.

 

They appreciate books on tape and may find that reading aloud will help them to retain information.

Rather than written reports, auditory learners tend to do better on oral presentations and reports.

 

· Utilize audiotapes for learning

· Read information aloud when studying

· Ask questions

· Watch videos

· Use word association techniques to remember facts

· Participate in class discussions

· Record directions and notes

· Listen to taped notes

· Avoid auditory distractions

· Participate in a study group or study with a study partner

· Make up songs or rhymes to go along with the pertinent material

· Use rhymes to recall dates, names, facts, etc.

· Write of steps in sentence form and then read them out loud

 

Best test style for auditory learner-oral exam, writing responses to lectures

Worst test style for auditory learner-reading comprehension.

Interactive Lectures...

What is Interactive Lectures?

Interactive lectures are classes in which the instructor incorporates engagement triggers and breaks the lecture at least once per class to have students participate in an activity that lets them work directly with the material. The engagement triggers capture and maintain student attention and the interactive lecture techniques allow students to apply what they have learned or give them a context for upcoming lecture material.

The Basic Structure of Interactive Lecture

 The goal of interactive lecture is to engage students by finding ways for them to interact with the content, the instructor, and their classmates. Accordingly, interactive lectures include segments of lecture combined with segments where students interact. 

One of the things that makes the lecture interactive is the ability of the instructor to choose the content of the lecture segments based on the students' needs. If students have difficulty answering a question, or an activity goes astray in many or most student groups, it's time to find a new and better way to deal with the material.

Instructors can also think of the value of format change during a class period in two ways.

1. Format change is valuable in its own right for recapturing attention and engaging students.
2. Also, the new format is often a better way to teach a topic or get a point across.

All of the activities used to make lectures interactive involve a learning curve for both instructors and students. Instructors must learn how to develop good questions, analyze the student responses, and incorporate that information into the following lecture segment or the next class period.

As with many active-learning techniques, interactive lectures may take longer to cover any given topic than non-interactive ones. Mazur (1997) recommends that the lecturer save time by only going over more difficult and important material rather than duplicating the coverage of the textbook.



Resource:  link

Tips Teachers Must Know about Visual Learners

-  Visual students are the ones who learn through what they are able to see with their own eyes. 

-  They are those students who jockey for the positions at the front of the class, must have front row theater seats and love to be right up front for sporting events in order to obtain the best view.

 

-  Visual learners have a tendency to describe everything that they see in terms of

appearances. 

-  These learners love visual aids such as photos, diagrams, maps and graphs. 

-  Visual learners frequently are good writers and will commonly perform quite well on written assignments.

-  They always:  

 

· Ask for written directions

· Utilize diagrams and flow charts for note taking

· Color code notes

· Visualize spelling of words or facts that must be memorized

· Write down key points

· Copy what is on the board

· Sit near the front of the classroom

· Watch videos

· Use highlighters to mark important points in notes

· Use graph paper in order to make diagrams and charts for key points

· Utilize illustrations to remember important material

· Utilize visual metaphors to associate relevant content

· Write down explanations for points that are difficult

Types of Blogs to Be Used in ELT

There are three types of Weblogs for use in ESL classrooms

The Tutor Blog

This is a type of weblog that is run by the tutor for the learners. It serves the following purposes:

• It gives daily reading practice to the learners. Sometimes students find assigned reading material too boring, difficult, or hard to relate with. This is because it is often written with another purpose in mind. So who better to write to them than the person who knows them best: the teacher. Entries are kept short, geared towards the learner interest, and linked to related online sources for further reading if desired. Vocabulary used in class can be recycled this way. New vocabulary words can be linked to definitions on other sites found with a search engine. Furthermore, a casual, natural writing style can be used by the tutor to develop learner familiarity with native language patterns.
   
• It promotes exploration of English websites. Any entry made by the tutor can and ought to encourage further exploration of the Internet in English by linking to related articles, and content based websites. For those learners reluctant to step outside the comfort of exploring the Web in their native language, being led to interesting English language sites will increase their confidence and help to overcome their aversion.
   
• It encourages online verbal exchange by use of comment buttons. At the bottom of each entry, any blog reader can make a comment that can be read and further commented on by all who access the site. Ask your students questions, give them riddles, challenge their views; whatever it takes to encourage them to comment.
   
• It provides class or syllabus information. Entries in the blog can also serve to remind students about homework assignments and upcoming discussion topics. Links can be provided to sites that introduce relevant topics of discussion. The tutor can also follow up on difficult areas of classroom work that might need review or clarification. In addition, a permanent link to the classroom syllabus and rules can be included on the blog.
   
• It serves as a resource of links for self-study. In the right and/or left margins of the blog, permanent links can be set-up and organized to aid the learner in self-study, for example links to online quizzes, English news sites, key-pal networks, audio and video files for listening practice and ESL interactive websites.

The Learner Blog

These are blogs that are either run by individual learners themselves or by small collaborative groups of learners. In ESL, learner blogs may be best suited for reading and writing classes. A common reading assignment can be followed by blog postings on the thoughts of each learner or group of learners. Furthermore, the act of constructing the blog may encourage the use of search engines and net surfing in English to find the appropriate sites to which links can be made.  This will empower the learner to direct the reader to sites of choice for further reading. Individually, blogs can be used as journals for writing practice, or as free-form templates for personal expression. The idea here is that students can get writing practice, develop a sense of ownership, and get experience with the practical, legal, and ethical issues of creating a hypertext document. In addition, whatever they write can instantly be read by anyone else and, due to the comment features of the software, further exchange of ideas is promoted. Tutors can even run a mega-blog of select topics of interest gleaned from student blogs so that the broader issues are brought into focus on a single website.

The Class Blog

This type of blog is the result of the collaborative effort of an entire class. The following are some possible uses:

• In conversation-based classes it could be used like a free-form bulletin board for learners to post messages, images, and links related to classroom discussion topics. It could also be a space for them to post thoughts on a common theme assigned for homework.
   
• With intermediate and advanced learners, class blogs might also useful for facilitating project-based language learning, where learners can be given the opportunity to develop research and writing skills by being asked to create an online resource for others.
   
• Class blogs could also be used as a virtual space for an international classroom language exchange.  In this scenario, learners from different countries would have joint access and publishing rights to the blog. The entire exchange would then be transparent to all readers and could be followed and commented on by other learners, tutors, parents and friends.
   
• For reading and writing classes, it might also involve the use of knowledge management software, like Userland's Manila, that allows for a great deal of threaded discussion behind the scenes. Much like a publishing group, individual learners can be given varying amounts of responsibility to publish material arising from postings on the discussion list. The results of this effort are what is seen on a website by the public at large.

 

Reference:   click here...

Last week in Webskills Course..

The final week, it is!

The main topic for this week was centering on the use of technology integration matrix. It is a very practical and clear way for integrating technology. It provides teachers with all what they need in order to follow a successful gradation of integrating technology.



Through these 10 weeks, I have built a great knowledge about technology integration in teaching.I really find my self incapable of counting the benefits that I gained through this course. It is really an opportunity that I can not afford. Being exposed to many topics regarding integrating technology in teaching, now by the end of this course, I feel like I am a new teacher that is growing once again. Reviving and renewing the teaching materials I would use in teaching, adding more teaching techniques to the ones I used before, discussing many issues of teaching with teachers from all over the world and knowing much more about my students and how to keep them on the right road, I am now definitely a new teacher with more modern and brighter insight.

This is the last week in our course, but This will not be the last post in this blog!

Learning Styles

Learners' Autonomy

Here are some tips that I found important for teachers to follow in order to build up learners' autonomy:


Offer encouraging, focused feedback as well as general praise to encourage students to work with purpose.

Recognize and praise effort. Help your students develop self-efficacy by helping them see the connection between effort and achievement.






Make success possible. Begin each assignment with the easier material, question, etc. Creating confident learners will encourage them to keep trying.




  Offer students a variety of ways to self-monitor their work. The easiest way is to offer them checklists to keep track of completed tasks.

 
It’s almost magic. If you think highly of your students, they will tend to behave better for you than for the teachers who obviously do not enjoy being with them.


 

Give clear written and verbal direction so that your students can find it easy to stay on task. Students who know how to do their work well will be less apt to be off class than those who do not know what they need to accomplish in class. Examples of bad work are also helpful because they can show student what not to do.




Arouse student curiosity about a lesson and you will find that inherent motivation will prevent many discipline problems.




Spend two minutes at the start of a lesson: ask questions, show photos, play clips, give quick teamed activities…anything that will encourage students to want to learn more.

Spend time setting goals with your students. Looking forward in this way gives your students practical reasons for wanting to do their work.





 For more Information see this link.
 

Teaching English Pronunciation to Speakers of Arabic as a Mother Tongue

There is no doubt that all the teachers of English as a foreign language are wondering about an easy way that would enable them teach pronunciation. For me, I think that detecting the areas that may cause difficulties and eases for the students in pronouncing English sounds is an effective way that enables the teachers find the right way to a better pronunciation teaching. Here, in this post, I am providing the findings of a paper that I wrote about the difficulties that may face Arabic students in pronouncing English words and utterances.

The Purpose of the paper was to provide a contrastive study between the Arabic and English sound systems and investigate the extent to which the pronunciation of the mother tongue may influence learning the pronunciation of a second language. Thus, the study is projected in three parts. The first part postulates the contrastive study between the Arabic and English sound systems. It provided a clear distinction between the Arabic and English consonant and vowel systems, underlying the areas of differences and similarities between both. And then, an error analysis study is applied in five Sudanese Arabic learners’ pronunciation for twenty chosen English words. In this post, as I said, I am producing the findings of my paper, that may help all those who teach English pronunciation to speakers of Arabic as a mother tongue.

Regarding the findings projected in the study, it is obvious that the most number of errors committed by the students are approximation errors which are in fact the cause of their mother tongue interference. In the articulation of the word “pupil”, three students tend to pronounce the word with replacing the first [p] with [b]. This is a selection error because the students selected the wrong sound to pronounce the word. It is due to mother tongue interference as in the Arabic sound system there is no /p/ sound, so the

students tried to produce and select a similar sound instead of producing a proper / p / English sound. In the pronunciation of the words “pig” and “big”, this interference can appear clearly, as no student made a mistake in pronouncing the word “big” while four of them pronounced the / b / sound instead of  /p /. The pronunciation of the word problem as well is a good example of this phenomenon.

Approximation errors made by the students because of the mother tongue interference also appears in the students’ pronunciation of vowels. As it is said before, the fact that in English there are more vowels than in that of Arabic, students of English may find difficulties in pronouncing some monophthongs and diphthongs. Some Examples about the mistakes the students made with regard to the pronunciation of vowels is the word “pupil”. The students applied their colloquial Sudanese Arabic pronunciation and that is by replacing the vowel / ə / by / ɪ / which is simpler for them to pronounce and similar to their own Arabic pronunciation.

Words like “star”, and “struggle” are likely to be pronounced wrong by the students, namely because in Arabic there are no consonant clusters. In such words, students seem to add an initial vowel / ɪ /, so they treat the one syllable word “star” as a two syllable word: [ɪs tɑ:r], as well as for the word “struggle.” It is obvious that the fact that Arabic words cannot begin in consonant sounds, so as the students find it difficult to pronounce such words. In the word “text” as well, 4 students tend to pronounce the word with adding a vowel / ɪ / separating the two consonants that compose the consonant cluster.

However, in pronouncing the word “doctor”, as it is used in both English and Arabic language meaning the same thing, students tend again to apply their mother tongue pronunciation. It is also the case in pronouncing the word “alcohol”. These two errors are selection errors. The students selected the wrong sounds to pronounce the words.  They are classified as well as errors due to mother tongue interference. In Sudanese colloquial Arabic the word “garage” is also used meaning the same thing in English. It is pronounced with a final / ʃ / instead of  / Ʒ /. Thus, the students tend to remain the pronunciation as they do in the Sudanese Arabic.

Furthermore, the facts that in Arabic the / r / is always pronounced as a trill makes it respectively difficult to pronounce the silent, rhoticized or non-rhoticized varieties of English. In words like “star”, “understand” and “doctor”, the / r /  is silent, but the students tend to pronoun it clearly. It is an addition error that the students added more sounds. It is also an approximation error because in their mother tongue the / r/ is not silent but a trill.

Another area of difficulty lies in the differences between the consonants and vowels in both languages that there are some consonants which exist in English but no in Arabic and so on. With respect to this fact, students actually found difficulty in pronouncing words containing the consonants: / v /, / dƷ /, / tʃ /, / ŋ /, etc. In table 2.3, the words: “solve, language, champion” are pronounced wrong, because the students try to substitute the unfamiliar sounds with other familiar ones that sound like those in the system of their mother tongue. So, they replaced the / v / with / f / in “solve”, the / dƷ / with / Ʒ / in “language”, and the / tʃ / with / ʃ / as in their pronunciation for “champion”.

Although the study tempted to contrast between both systems in order to find areas of differences that may come up with solutions for the students’ problems in pronouncing the English sounds, but the matter was not about the influence of the standard Arabic, it was about the Sudanese dialect of Arabic spoken by Sudanese students. In pronouncing some English words, it is observed that some pronunciations by the students cannot be justified as mother tongue interference unless this mother tongue is considered as the colloquial Arabic spoken by Sudanese people.  As in so many other cases, in pronouncing the word “what” as [wʌṭ] with the emphatic sound / ṭ /, we cannot admit that it is the standard Arabic pronunciation that influenced the students’ pronunciation of this word. Accurately, as Sudanese people always seem to pronounce the sound / t / as / ṭ /, it is likely clear to assume that it is this spoken variety by Sudanese people that influences the pronunciation, and not likely the standard one.

Nevertheless, not all the errors are classified as approximation errors, some of them turn to be competence and performance errors which are due to unintended mistakes by the students that they would be able to correct, or errors that are not due to the mother tongue interference  but to the students’ own ability to pronounce them. This appears in the students’ pronunciation for the words “adults, what, live, oxford, playing”. The students, in these errors, did not apply their mother tongue in the pronunciation but they produced their own pronunciation that differs from English and have no relation to the Arabic one.

The full version of this paper is available for everyone who is interested in this topic. Just send to khadijam.989@gmail.com and the file will be sent to your mail.

I Hope that I was helpful!  

By: Khadija Muhammad Abdussalam
Teacher in the University of Khartoum
Khartoum, Sudan